Modern vehicles are equipped with multiple sensors in order to support the driver and to increase the active and passive safety of the vehicle. For instance, headlamps can be controlled to generate either low beams or high beams. Low beams provide less illumination and are used to illuminate the forward path when other vehicles are present ahead of the ego vehicle. High beams provide more illumination and are used to illuminate the forward path when no other vehicles are present ahead of the ego vehicle.
Another operational area for sensors are driver assistant systems which survey the surroundings of the ego vehicle e.g. for detecting obstacles when a lane change is intended or when the ego vehicle is maneuvered into a parking position.
More and more optical functions have to be integrated into the vehicle, provided by a multitude of sensors or sensor systems which are distributed all over the vehicle. The different views of the various sensor systems allow for increasing the level of safety. An imaging system for vehicle lights is disclosed in US-A-2003/0123705.
It is known in the art to employ imaging sensor chips like CCD arrays (CCD=charged coupled device) or CMOS arrays (CMOS=complementary metal oxide semiconductor). It is known to project an image onto a single imaging sensor chip and detect different images by using color filters.
EP 1 777 943 A discloses an imaging system comprising a multitude of sensors surveying one or more fields of vision and an imaging sensor chip comprising an array of light-sensitive elements. Image information provided by the sensors are projected on the imaging sensor chip. The imaging sensor chip provides dedicated sensor areas, wherein each dedicated sensor area is assigned to one dedicated sensor.